


Bad Idea

by MissingTriforce



Series: A Kinder Universe [3]
Category: Vampire: The Masquerade, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Blood Bond, Blood Sharing, Blood and Gore, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Shower Sex, The only good fascist is a dead fascist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:22:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22890136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissingTriforce/pseuds/MissingTriforce
Summary: When Beckett began his quest to unearth the Eye of Ravnos before the Nazis could, he didn't expect to be led to the Bonpensieros, one of LA's most influential coteries. He didn't expect Cassandra, with her musical beauty and swirling prophecies of Caine. And he definitely didn't expect to bite and bond to her. Bad idea, for sure.
Relationships: Beckett/Original Malkavian Character(s) (Vampire: The Masquerade)
Series: A Kinder Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645372
Comments: 17
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

Water fell in Los Angeles the night they departed. As they settled into the cabins they would call home for the month-long quest, Cassandra didn’t need her enhanced senses to hear the rain.

#

She knocked on his door and walked through the muted “Come in.”

“Ah, Cassandra, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Beckett said. He sat at his desk and wore the same clothes as yesterday—that leather and khaki combination that made it look like he was to raid the Tomb of Solomon. Come to think of it, she supposed they were, in a way, about to raid a tomb of a king. Maybe she should have brought more roughshod clothes.

She shook these thoughts away. “I came to ask how you are, darling. Settling in fine?”

“This cruise ship your father has provided is most adequate,” Beckett said, “More than I was expecting. Your family is very generous in the pursuit of archaeology.”

Cassandra trilled a laugh. “Just because we’re racing off to fetch the Eye of the Ravnos Methuselah before the Nazis can doesn’t mean we can’t be comfortable. And, you know, the lure of adventure is hard to resist. I fear LA was becoming a little small for us. We Kindred need to shake ourselves up every once in a while, I think, lest we become stagnant.” She darted glances around the room. His cabin was a much narrower coffin than hers, with a small bed, lavatory, shower, wardrobe, and desk crowding for space. She licked her lips. This conversation ought to have taken place somewhere more auspicious, but needs must.

“That’s a modern outlook,” Beckett shrugged. Cassandra must have interrupted him while he was working, for the desk was full of papers and a pen was in his gloved hand. Gloves. Hm.

The weight of Beckett’s red-gold eyes thrilled her as she stepped deeper into the room. She knew her body was beautiful and her voice sensuous. “I’m also wondering, Beckett, if you had any questions about what we spoke about earlier, back in Haven, in my room.” She was so used to not speaking about it, to keeping the voices secret, that a rare, tender awkwardness flooded her heart as she said the words aloud. And they weren’t even very specific words.

“About you hearing the Voice of Caine?”

“Yes, I know my head is a bit of a confusing place, and seeing you was so exciting that I may have garbled some parts. So, I wanted to ask now, while I’m feeling calm and there’s not much going on.”

“I see,” he said, and Cassandra wondered how two terse words could come out of so inquisitive a mouth. Beckett tilted his head adorably, didn’t he? Like a dog. Did all Gangrels do that? Cassandra had only met two before Beckett.

“Why don’t I summarize what you told me and you can see if I’ve got it right,” Beckett said, finally, after a long silence. “It’s not often I get to speak with a source twice, so this will be a novel experience for me.”

Cassandra twined a finger around a curl at the compliment. “Fire away, darling.”

“You were turned by the Malkavian known as Cactus Jack. When you woke from your Embrace you heard an overwhelming number of voices.”

“Yes,” Cassandra said, before she could stop herself. “It’s like… as if I stand in an auditorium with a hundred people, all their eyes trained on me, and they speak every thought that comes into their brains. And another Malkavian is in the adjoining room, with just the same situation, and another just so, and another and another. All the doors are open. It’s maddening.”

Beckett arched a brow. “Indeed. And then you looked up and saw a doll. From the doll came a voice so loud that it drowned out the other voices, and you instinctively knew this voice belonged to Caine.” Beckett stopped and looked at Cassandra for confirmation, and she nodded. “The doll acts as some sort of conduit, you think. Because the voice can speak when you try to contact Wraiths or sing.”

Cassandra closed her eyes. “Yes, when I’m singing, it’s like…all the voices are singing with me.” The flow of music, the flow of blood, the flood of ink on sheet notes…. Beckett nodded and scribbled something down.

“Over time, the Voice began telling you a story from the perspective of Lilith. She spoke about meeting Caine, living with him happily for a while, teaching him vampirism, their attempt at children, and then his eventual abandonment of her. Caine says he regrets the creation of vampires, and Lilith then swears that her daughters will end the Kindred species. Have I got it right?”

Cassandra nodded as hard as she could. “Yes! Perfect! Thank you for listening to me. You have no idea what it’s like to keep such a thing to oneself.” She whirled around, tearing her gaze from Beckett, noting the mirror shine of his eyes. “I’ve been thinking about it, and vampires are really a plague upon humanity. We harm so many people.” Cassandra hugged herself hard. “I’ve hurt so many people. It would be better if we were all dead.” She pushed down the flashes of regret—the Gunthers, the flower-crowned skull, the babe in her arms—

She whirled again to meet Beckett’s avid gaze. “We are dead. We were supposed to have died.” An electric frenzy raced in her veins as her excitement grew. She wasn’t seeing Beckett anymore, but into the castle-in-the-sky her visions built. “I was supposed to be dead when my neck was snapped and my body was dumped in the trash.”

#

“A dumpster?” Beckett said, and Cassandra’s hysteric gaze zeroed in on him, as if she’d forgotten he was there. “You were left for dead in a dumpster?”

Cassandra laughed with bitterness. “I don’t seem like the type, do I?”

“Certainly not someone as…glamourous as yourself, no,” Beckett shook his head, and Cassandra crowded near. Her fingers reached out and brushed his long brown hair back, sending a spark tingling down his skull. His mind raced back to the last time someone had touched him so casually and—three years. He’d been away from Anatole since the war started in ‘39. Aristotle had mandated that the Mnemosyne travel far and separate from another, to ensure at least one would survive this second World War.

“How kind of you to say,” she said as she caressed a strand, followed it to its end, and let the hair drop. “You are kind.” She still looked abstracted, like telling her truth had pulled herself apart somehow. Then she laughed with a grounded, sad sound, and she looked like a starlet again. “I think Freud would say I have an over-active death drive.”

“I’ve met Freud,” he said, eyeing his papers so he didn’t have to look at her. “Remarkable man. I did a whole study of his methods and theories.” No, he couldn’t stop it: his eyes gravitated back to the fine bones of her wrists, the faint muscle of her arms; the swan-like length of her neck.

Cassandra’s dark eyes widened, and the space between her eyebrows crinkled in…motherly worry? Well, that was certainly rare in a vampire. “Oh, my apologies, he and him are your pronouns, correct?”

Beckett did not expect that question. “Yes, they are. Havelock Ellis classified me as bisexual, I believe.”

Tension leaked out of her. “I’ve read Freud’s writings. Many of his patients were… ‘inverts’ is the name you might know? I much prefer Ellis’s terms. I’m bisexual too.”

That made Beckett chuckle. He hadn’t talked about gender for years. “Of course, I should have guessed.” Watching Cassandra was like watching a glittering butterfly. Her body flitted and her mind danced from topic to topic, from space to space in his room. Her mercurial moods and quixotic emotions shone plain as moonlight on her face. Maybe he had underestimated Malkavians. The Moon clan could be strange, but “strange” for vampires could mean being generous, welcoming, kind, and eager. He had called her a fount of knowledge in LA, and she hadn’t disappointed him yet.

Cassandra in particular seemed…more than other Malkavians he had met. He could have mistaken her for a Toreador easily. Even the dull light of his cabin’s single bulb made a halo around her blonde curls; made the makeup on her face shimmer. She wore a day dress, but it shone like black silk. She smelled like grave soil, like all vampires did, but an undercurrent of violets spiked her presence with a heady musk.

And she had not fled him.

“Would you care to give me a demonstration?”

Cassandra startled, and he allowed himself to touch the soft fabric of her hips to steady her. “Demonstration?” she breathed. “You want to me to interpret your dreams?” She bent at the waist, and the traitors of his legs opened to let her yet closer. Her fingers and palm ghosted over his cheek. “What do you dream of, Beckett?”

He cleared his throat. “Of your visions. Could you have one now for me? So I may observe.”

Doubt flickered across her features, and she whirled out of his hands, but the next moment her shoulders were squared and her chin determined. “All right. Shall I read your palm?”

“Palmistry? You didn’t mention that.” Beckett took a deep breath, and his only reward the intoxicating perfume of violets.

Cassandra shrugged. “When I was young, Mother taught me to read out of a book of spells, and my education only bloomed from there. One of the first things one learns is palm reading. It’s easy. I think it’s ironic that my father is Kindred now. My mother was always the one interested in the occult. Don Enzo almost…he never liked it much. And yet the flu tore her from me, and my father is with me forever.” Even during so few sentences, she moved: looked down, bit her lip, put a knuckle to her chin in thought.

“Can’t say I put much stock in predicting the future from how my hand folds.” Beckett clenched and unclenched his hands. The leather creaked. He didn’t know if he wanted Cassandra to see his claws.

“It will give me something to focus on,” Cassandra insisted. “Now get on the bed.”

“Pardon me?”

“You can’t be comfortable on that chair.” She pointed to it in distaste. “Hardly any good back support. Sergio has already complained, and Zelde wants to invent a better one.”

Ah. Her ghouls. Beckett generally pitied ghouls for how bound they were to their masters, but Cassandra seemed to hold a certain affection towards hers. She treated them like people still. Usually, Beckett took this behavior as a sign of a Kindred’s youth, but his research had placed Cassandra in the sixties of her existence. She had been Embraced in her mid-thirties, even older an age than his. How hard had she had to fight against the evil of the world, a world that was only interested in hardening her? What had it taken to be a person who feared most her own capacities for cruelty?

Maybe that was part of her appeal. Beckett always found himself forming special fondness for neonates. They remembered being human, what it felt like to have blood rush to cheeks in anger or passion. Cassandra’s movements, her looks, her ever-pacing mind—she was alive all the more.

He stood. And immediately had to ignore how close their faces were. “Pardon me,” he said, brushing past her. The bed creaked as he sat on it, but thank God it wasn’t loud enough to hurt his ears, or reach the ears of his neighbors. Not through these heavy metal walls.

Cassandra slid down before him. “Which is your dominant hand?” They were really doing this, he supposed. He held out his right. Maybe she would lose interest in him after seeing his Mark of the Beast. Claws black as pitch were frowned upon, in the general opinion.

Carefully, gently, Cassandra peeled off his glove. The leather gave easily, and she meticulously smoothed the accessory across the bedsheets. “You have large hands, but that’s typical in a man,” she murmured.

He waited for her to comment on the sharpened nails that could easily rend her flesh. The gasp, the scrambling away, eyes widened in fright.

They didn’t come.

Cassandra opened his hand with a tenderness Beckett could only remember from his days as a human. Like she was afraid she would break him as she guided his fingers open and laid them out to the light. Her fingers traced his palm with an unheard-of delicacy, and the warm breath from her bent head stopped like she feared the air would shatter his bones. Beckett’s own breath hitched without his permission.

“You have strong hands—well-muscled and calloused no less. You’re used to hard labor and fighting. But also writing. There’s a writer’s mark on your ring finger—it must have been there going back to your kine days. And here,” her nail glided in a circle around his thumb, “I’ve never seen a more scientific bent to a mind.”

“Apart from being a scholar a long time, you knew all that within minutes of meeting me,” Beckett chuckled, trying to wrest control of the situation back.

“I did,” Cassandra conceded, and it made her curls bounce. She touched the uppermost line. “But I did not know that you require so little affirmation when it comes to love. You accept feelings as people say them, and believe them to be true until they are evidently not. Very pragmatic on the whole.”

Beckett said nothing, which he thought proved the point rather nicely.

“What interests me the most is your destiny line.” Cassandra pressed the pad of her pointer finger against the long crease bisecting his hand. “It’s….”

The pause grew into a silence, which moved into awkwardness. “Cassandra?” Beckett prodded. She kneeled in complete stillness. He tugged his hand. “May I have my hand—”

Cassandra yanked Beckett’s hand into her stomach, and her neck snapped upward. Her face was fever-bright and pale, like the full moon blazing in the sky. The midnight, unfocused wells of Cassandra’s eyes made his spine rile with adrenaline, and the Beast within him growled.

The voice that spoke was not the musical one he had come to know. It was harsher, grated against his ears, sounded like it had been dredged up from the ocean deep. “Beckett.”

He refused to be intimidated. “That is me.”

Cassandra smiled, but the gesture looked alien, like it had never been on her face before, like she suddenly possessed far too many teeth. “We speak at last, Beckett. The new epoch will be an interesting one. We will walk across the earth together, you and I. The best and brightest of my sons, and you will not recognize me as your father.”

Beckett refused to rise to the bait. “I presume ‘Caine’ is speaking, then.”

“Yesssss,” the voice said. “My poor daughter here, so lost, so well-intentioned. That’s how they all start, until their regrets hang like rope around their necks.”

Beckett’s upper lip rose in a sneer. “Then release her.”

“It is inescapable. The blood of Caine—my blood—makes our fate. Farewell, my son. Until the new dawn.”

Cassandra’s body jolted and fell into Beckett’s lap. He grabbed her shoulders in time so that her head hit lightly against his chest. “Remarkable,” he murmured into hair. “You rival even Anatole.”

“Did it work?” Cassandra said. She breathed hard—a human habit—and sat up. “Did you see? Did you hear?”

Her eyes were bright again, electric. Beckett smoothed back her hair before he could stop himself. “That was certainly a unique experience. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

“You will meet him,” she said, the excitement in her voice building. “You will walk with Caine. You—you will speak to him and then, then you will….” Cassandra froze. Her eyes unfocused again, and alarm spread in Beckett’s chest as honest-to-god tears fell from her eyes. Her voice changed, to a whisper, to a faint echo. “You will wither.”

“Wither? An interesting choice of words,” he said. His brain buzzed with all this new information, calculating coincidence and Cobweb accuracy. He itched to write this all down.

“Beckett,” Cassandra said. “You’re going to die.”

“We’re all already dead, according to you,” Beckett said.

Distress pinched her face. “No! You will be a great loss! People will cry out! A great mind.” Her hands released his to frame his face. “A great heart.” She pressed her palms against his left breast, where a silence had reigned for over two centuries.

A small lean forward, and she kissed him. Well. He hadn’t been expecting that.

#

Beckett tasted like cinnamon and smelled like well-oiled leather. God, why did they all have to leave? She wanted to keep this one. Dear God in Heaven, do not take the one who understood her.

She kissed him hard enough to fire her belly, and he returned the gesture in kind. She gasped, “Do you want…?”

“Kiss me,” he growled.

More than happy to oblige, Cassandra rose. “Then no more hiding.” With as much delicacy as she could manage, she lifted his sunglasses off to reveal his cherry-colored eyes. She knew about them—anyone who came as close as she did could notice their red mirror flash, like an animal staring into a camera. “Lovely,” she murmured, touching his temple.

“The Mark of the Beast,” Beckett said, dropping those lovely eyes away from her. “Like my hands.”

Cassandra glanced at his hands and kneeled to take off the second glove. “You don’t need these either. Not with me.” With the soft brush of cloth and a tonk of wire, Cassandra left his masks on his desk. She loved how he watched her, like it was her body and not her voice that revealed secrets.

“This is better,” Cassandra said, closing the space between them, lifting up her dress, and settling on Beckett’s lap. All night she’d wanted to run fingers through Beckett’s hair unhindered, and now she lived that dream. “Better.”

“Cassandra….”

She kissed his mouth like it was a continent to plunder, and he was all too happy to be conquered. Grinding her hips downward made his hands fly to her thighs, and the delicious rush of his claws sent warmth straight to her center. This was what she wanted—this was what she craved—connection.

His arms encased her, and she sucked on his tongue. She nibbled his lower lip, and his hands rose higher and squeezed her ass. She giggled and pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses to his throat.

“Cassandra,” he whispered and buried his face in her hair, like he couldn’t get enough. He squeezed again.

She pulled away. “Too much, darling?”

He whispered, “Don’t stop,” but was in the smallest voice she’d ever heard from him, like it was a secret. Why would wanting this be a secret? It made no sense to her, unless…. She pressed a kiss behind his ear. “When’s the last time someone touched you…” She scraped her teeth against his neck, and the man groaned in pleasure, leaned away to grant her better access, “like this?”

She kissed his neck once more and yet he did not answer. Oh no. A long time then. Her fingers flew to the buttons of his shirt. “Take this off,” she ordered.

“What…?”

As quickly as she could manage, which was very quickly considering what she was, Cassandra unbuttoned his shirt, ripped the cotton open, and pushed Beckett backwards. He fell with a creak of the mattress into the pillows, and Cassandra planted her hands on either side of his head to hover over him. “I’m going to touch you, but not bite you, all right? Don’t worry.”

The cat-like slits of Beckett’s pupils were perfectly round as he cupped her cheek and guided her down for a soft kiss. “You really are too generous.”

“Nonsense,” Cassandra said. “Kindred culture is just silly.”

They kissed an eternity more, and only once heat burned from the top of her head to the bottom of her toes did she move to his collarbones. She nuzzled into his chest hair and licked his nipples until he stuttered and gripped her shoulders. Hard.

The world blurred as Beckett flipped their positions. She should have taken off her dress when she had the chance. It trapped her now, as Beckett kneaded her breasts, stole air from her lungs, weaseled his knee between her legs and rubbed. Her body pulsed, and her center pooled hot like magma. She stretched wider, gripped Beckett’s back tighter. “I want you,” she murmured into his ear. “Come inside me.”

“With pleasure,” he growled, his voice barely a notch above gravel. “Let us get more comfortable, yes?”

He sat up and off her, and the room she had thought so narrow was much too big now. She unzipped her dress and flung it off, and her fingers took far too long stumbling over garters and bra because Beckett was naked and kissing her again, that cinnamon taste filling her up.

She let herself fall back again, because marveling at Beckett was too important to put off any longer. His height was only an inch or two less than hers, she knew, but he seemed so much larger naked, his belly plush, the brown hair thick and curled on his arms and chest, but lighter on the top of his thighs. His dark nipples stood as pert and ready as his cock. He’d also paused, it seemed, to drink in her visage, and the ravishing promised by those crimson eyes made her shiver.

As soon as he was inside her, she gathered her legs to trap him in.

#

He couldn’t get enough of her noises: the soft little cries when he moved, the moans when he sucked her breasts, the keens as he bruised her skin, the shouts when he rutted faster and faster. He wanted to swallow every one, to sear them into his memory. His Beast so eager; the mechanics made unconscious and easy. He would remember this night, and it would keep him warm for years after. The animal smell of sex invaded his nose. Their skin slapped together, in a rhythm like chanting. God, he’d been a fool to go so long without this.

His balls tightened, and he knew he wouldn’t last long. He grunted—no, she had to cum too. Only fair, and he wouldn’t be called a bad lover. He thrust harder, once, twice, and oh God, he saw white as the world fell apart and his teeth found her neck.

Scorching, liquid heat sucked down his throat, and his Beast roared in happiness. Cassandra spasmed around him, and her seed joined his, adding gasoline to the already raging inferno. Pinpricks of pain stabbed into his back as her nails dug in, and his claws grew wet as they sliced into her arms to hold her in place.

He had to stop—he had to stop—he had to stop, but she tasted so mouth-smackingly delicious, like hot mulled wine in winter or cold strawberries in summer heat. With an almighty yank of willpower, he wrenched himself away, and her own lifeblood dripped from her jaws and onto the white skin of her breast.

“Darling,” she breathed. Her eyes were glazed in carnal delight. Her hand quavered upward to run a thumb across his cheekbone as he watched her neck knit itself back together.

Shame rushed his senses. How could he have done this? He hadn’t asked permission and had blood bonded to a Malkavian—a _Malkavian_. Granted, a kind Malkavian, an accepting Malkavian, one who had provided him with so much information and would make a brilliant research partner if he could only get her to leave off thinking Caine wanted her dead for her crimes—

“Where have you gone?” Cassandra had propped herself up on her elbow. “I don’t mind. Come back,” she sang, and at once Beckett’s attention snapped to the present where a naked woman lay under him for the first time in over fifty years.

Cassandra kissed him, and the embers, which had banked down in his panic, grew to new life. She tasted like…she was tasting herself on his lips.

“Lie back,” she said, and he could only obey. Was this some effect of her strange blood? Had it already begun?

They disentangled themselves only to twine anew. Cassandra nestled between his legs like a hen, and with a spectacular flex of her jaw, swallowed him down. Becket shouted in surprise, and Cassandra bobbed. He couldn’t take his eyes off the mess of spit and pre-cum created when she popped off, but he was forced to by the broad swath of her tongue against his slit. He arched backward and groaned. “Man alive, where did you learn that?”

Cassandra swallowed and hummed around him in response, and his cock was so hard it hurt. Beckett had once prided himself on his stamina, but with Cassandra he was outmatched. She encased him and hummed and suckled his head, and when she released it, his cock stood right up against his stomach, red and yearning.

Seeing her intention, he moved to hold himself. Smiling like a cat already deep in the cream, Cassandra nuzzled into his upper thigh and bit down hard.

Beckett shouted. Thick ropes of cum surged out of him, and he felt like he was on fire. Pure, unfiltered joy coursed through his veins, boiled his brain; made his entire existence bright. Unlife could be good too.

By the time he’d reoriented himself, Cassandra was licking his seed off his chest. His lungs grasped for air, like he’d run in the sun, not just fucked and been fucked until he couldn’t think anymore.

“Cassandra,” he croaked, and somehow she knew, she knew what he wanted. She kissed him and he tasted his seed and his blood—a most complete mixture.

She settled around him, molding herself to his side, but it wasn’t enough, not after what they’d done. He rolled over and nudged her in the shoulder. Again, she understood, and he spooned up next to her lithe body, wrapped his arm around her, and pulled her close. She felt too fragile, like he could break her if he wasn’t careful. He supposed he could—Malkavians were not known for their durability. He had to protect her, keep her safe, keep her at his side so they could have nights like this again and again and again.

He observed the patterns of his thoughts, and he realized that he was indeed blood bound to Cassandra Bonpensiero. A bad idea, to say the least, but that sweetness, that compassion he had just tasted—he must have it again. Must hear her sing.


	2. Chapter 2

He awoke the next night feeling unusually sated.

And not alone.

Another body warmed his back, and centuries of mistrust made his muscles tense and his claws flex. It was Cassandra, he chided himself.

The blankets shifted, and Cassandra pressed her softness against his tense muscles. She wrapped an arm around him, kissed the nape of his neck, nuzzled, and hummed. God, the sound made his chest ache. Before he realized what he was doing, he twined his fingers with hers.

“Good evening,” she murmured.

“Very good indeed,” Beckett said, wondering if he had truly lost his mind as he found himself kissing her knuckles.

Cassandra hummed again, and the sound morphed into a pleasant tune. Beckett closed his eyes and let contentment run through him like starlight. It’d been so long since someone held him. He must have slept again, for he lost track of time until Cassandra whispered, “I should get up. Sergio will start to worry.”

Beckett stretched and rolled over in her arms, so he could kiss her sweet. “Your ghoul can wait a little longer.” He went back to kissing, soft and thorough. Cassandra tasted delicious, and still smelled of violets. God, he wanted his bedsheets stained with her scent. Warm, lazy arousal stirred in his belly, and his cock twitched. Later he would find out how or what was making his Beast and his desire so in-tune. _Later_.

Cassandra chuckled into his lips and reached down between them to stroke his cock to fullness. Her touch was indulgent and slow, and his kisses grew sloppier and sloppier until he gave up altogether to worship her from breast to collarbone.

She gave a breathy sigh as her body shivered. “Beckett,” she whined. “I need you.”

Before he could respond, she had pushed him onto his back and joined them together. Beckett gasped at the whirl of it, of the sudden ecstasy in wet encasement. His chest split jagged with piercing desire as Cassandra rocked forward, her pace steady and unrelenting.

His toes curled as arousal built up, and he whimpered and gripped bedsheets unashamed. He didn’t care that his neck was exposed, that this vulnerability would no doubt be punished, that fate had a bone of misery to pick with him. He only thought of how Cassandra’s scorching slickness coated his cock, how her eyes shone in focused pleasure, how the sweat on her brow damped her curls just so. The slow, dizzy build upward left him gagging for more, and Cassandra’s shudder of orgasm was quickly followed by the white-hot pulse of his own.

Beckett felt utterly boneless. Cassandra fell forward and brushed the sweaty strands of hair from his eyes. “Good, darling?”

“Very, very good,” Becket smiled, and he filled his lungs with air just for the fun of watching Cassandra rise and fall. “You are quite gifted.”

“Mmm, why thank you,” Cassandra practically beamed. “You’re not so bad yourself, Mr. Beckett.”

He regained use of his arms and snaked them around her, guided their lips together. “’Mister,’” he scoffed between kisses. “I think we are past formality.”

Cassandra laughed a full-bodied laugh, and Beckett coveted the vibrations the sound sent. “But I really must make an appearance with Sergio. They will be worried I didn’t come back last night.”

Beckett said, “Fears the big bad wolf ate you up.”

Cassandra waved her hand as if to dismiss the idea. “As if you would be stupid enough to kill a woman in such a closed environment with a limited number of suspects.”

“Wouldn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that out, no,” he said, dry as ever. “I’ll come with you.”

“You’ve already come with me,” Cassandra laughed, and she used a burst of speed to narrowly miss Beckett hitting her with a pillow. She danced out of reach, naked as the night she was born. Beckett found himself smiling again—when was the last time he had smiled so much?

He watched as Cassandra covered her beautiful body in beautiful black silk. Even debauched as she was, she glowed with an elegance that these modern nights had lost. Wistfulness seized him, and he caught her wrist when she fluttered close.

“Beckett?”

He kissed her palm. “You catch me unawares, Cassandra. I’m off-kilter with you.”

She ran her free fingers through his hair, and it seemed like nights of stress eased away. “You’ll catch up.”

He doubted. “You’ll sleep here in the morning?” He wanted more of her, wanted to the ship to never land—it was the damn blood bond talking.

“I would like that,” Cassandra said, voice soft and gentle. “Very much.”

“All right,” he murmured. With one last kiss to her palm, he actually began the process of dressing and preparing for the night. “Let’s go assuage the worries of your ghoul.”


	3. Chapter 3

Delight sped like quicksilver through her blood. Another map fragment! They had done so well! Yes, a rich house in Havana burned to ash, and that strange zombie had turned himself to dust, but another fragment with none of their party harmed—in fact, two new members gained, and Gangrel Elders no less.

She followed Beckett to his cabin as if she floated, and as soon as the door clanged shut, her blood roared its strength to slam his body against the wall. With greed she swallowed down his gasp, and with intention she pinned his wrists above his head. “We—did—so—well,” she said between kisses.

“Cassandra,” he breathed. His chest heaved against hers, and she chased every last molecule of air out of his lungs. She knew he was stronger than her, but the bones of his wrist flexed as if he were helpless before her assault, like he was a puddle for her to form into a rainstorm.

Still holding his wrists, she backed her lips away, though Beckett followed her as long as he could. His eyes were shut tight, like he was afraid if he opened them the dream would be over. Silly.

“Ever had someone inside you, my darling?” Cassandra asked. She placed a chaste kiss on his cheek, and his whole body shivered.

“Yes,” he said, his voice strangled, like this information had to be wrung out of him. “Please.”

Cassandra’s nose flared like she smelled prey. “You got it, my lovely.” In one fluid movement, she released his wrists and kneeled. Beckett’s hands flew to her head and dug into her hair. That warm pressure—how nice.

A flash and his pants and underwear pooled and his cock was before her, short and fat and beloved. She nuzzled her face into his groin, and Beckett’s breathing hitched as his body folded. “Cassandra, don’t tease.”

“Why ever not, darling? You smell divine.” Becket growled, but the growl turned into a whimper as she licked the length of his shaft and swirled her tongue over the head. Running her hands from his ankles to his knees, she rubbed the thick black hairs, getting him used to her touch. More cock licking and he grew to dripping, and she eagerly ate the salty rain up. Her palms chased up his thighs. Her own stomach fluttered as she swallowed him down to the hilt, as pubes tickled her nose, as the body shudder led to fucking her mouth wide. Claws tightened in her hair as she cupped his balls. Spit fell down her chin, and she soaked her fingers in it before broaching his hole. With a press, with a push, like that she was in and on the pulse-point of his sex, stroking his nub as he keened and his cock jolted to discoordination, to distraction, to knees buckling, to hot sweetness in her throat, to savoring.

“I’m purchasing lube in Rio,” Cassandra announced, licking her lips. “You are amazingly sensitive.”

Beckett’s laugh sounded winded as he slid down the wall, until they were eye-level again. “I shall gird my loins in anticipation.”

“No, no, you must un-gird them. Hide nothing from me,” Cassandra said.

She froze. Oh, she hadn’t meant to say that. It was too close to what she wanted. The seriousness of it struck the room like an iron rod. Killed the mood.

Beckett must have sensed the change, for his wry smirk disappeared. Suddenly his red gaze felt weighted, heavy, and Cassandra couldn’t carry the burden of it. “I would sit forever at your knee,” she whispered. “And listen to your words fall down like boulders to change the landscape of my mind.”

Beckett said nothing. Perhaps she should go. He had a new map piece to no doubt analyze into next week. In Rio they would find another. And then a third in Transylvania with Dracula and the map would be complete and they would have the Eye and then he wouldn’t have to speak to her anymore.

The faint click of his sunglasses being placed on the floor caused her to look up. Carefully, deliberately, he took off his gloves. Cassandra’s eyes widened, as he leaned forward to cup her cheek and place a soft kiss, like a stamp, like a promise on her mouth. “We are blood bonded, so our feelings are heightened, but…after the moon comes and goes, I would not be opposed to considering if…we would welcome each other’s company in the long term.”

Alarm rang in her ears. “Are you proposing marriage to me?”

_That_ got the smirk back on his face. “Marriage between Kindred is exceedingly rare in our communities, but not entirely unheard of. I was thinking of traveling companions, to start. I have traveled with others before. Anatole is one—he is of your clan and led me to you. Lucita the Lasombra is another.”

“Ah, so you have a fondness for Malkavians. I am just your type,” Cassandra teased and bumped their foreheads together.

“Anatole is very different from you. For one, he’s been celibate going on a thousand years.”

Cassandra sat up and pretended to be aghast. “An absolute demon then.”

“A monk and prophet, rather.”

“Absolutely wonderful. Tell me everything,” Cassandra said, excitement welling up. They were on more steady ground. This was more usual—Beckett telling her things, teaching her, guiding her through history, myth, and story.

#

They were waiting outside an army base two hour’s drive from Rio. The jungle sang danger around them, but Beckett was more wary of the British and vampiric forces currently slicing Germans to ribbons inside the concrete walls. Orson Welles had won a fragment of their map a year past in the card game, and three days ago Netchurch and his German colleagues had kidnapped the Hollywood director off set and trapped him in this base. Having seen a fraction of the Bonpensieros’ might in Havana and knowing the Gangrel Elders by reputation, he wasn’t needed in this fight. Better to let them tear out squealing guts by the fistful and choke the fascist presence by its own intestines.

“Anna is very efficient, but Nathan is having a bloody time of it,” Cassandra commented. She and Don Enzo stood beside him. To Beckett’s surprise, Cassandra pulled out a gold cigarette case. She offered Don Enzo a cigarette, which he took without comment, and then the box to him. “Do you smoke, Beckett?”

“Not since the 1890s,” he said. “Terrible for your health.”

Cassandra laughed. “Good thing we’re dead, then. I like the spins.” He watched as the case disappeared, and she produced a matching lighter. The trinket winked in the moonlight, and Cassandra lit her father’s cigarette and her own with practiced flair. The lighter returned to a pocket, and she pulled in a deep drag and released the smoke with a sigh. Don Enzo followed, but he blew an imperious smoke ring.

She looked the image of Hollywood star like this. Her light hair had a silver turn, and the deep red of her lips appeared black. The faint orange glow of the cigarette enhanced instead of ruined the effect, granting an air of singular sensuality and mystery only nicotine smoke could grant.

“Where did Nathan learn to fight?” Beckett asked, trying to distract himself. “To each his own, but he is quite ruthless.”

Enzo answered, “World War One. He fought in the trenches of France.”

“It was the patriotic thing to do, back then. And now, I suppose,” Cassandra said, blowing another cloud. “I’m glad I’m a woman. He was such a sensitive, charming boy. Can’t imagine the things he saw to change him so.”

Enzo harrumphed. “He’s a patriot.”

“A patriot who is currently,” Cassandra tilted her head, as if listening, “pulling a rib out of another man’s body to add it to his collection. Did you know he killed nine people last night? _And_ two pigeons by stuffing stones down their mouths.”

“It always comes back to blood. Who is willing to shed it. Who sheds it anyway,” Enzo said, apparently ignoring his daughter.

“Smoking makes you accurate and eloquent, Enzo,” Beckett remarked, at once dry and whimsical. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Did you smoke when you were alive?”

“Of course,” Enzo said. “It is the done thing.”

“A bad social habit for me, I’m afraid,” Cassandra said. “Everyone in Hollywood smokes, and it’s atrocious. And they look at you so when you don’t. I’m glad I got Sancha off it when I did.”

Beckett arched a brow. “Sancha?”

“My particular friend,” Cassandra said. “She and I used to sing at the Haven nightclub in the ‘20s. I look after her and her daughter, Elena. You would like Elena. She’s whip-smart. Always telling me about row-bots and computers that will rival Babbage and Lovelace’s Analytical Engine. She says humans will be on the moon next. I would like to go to the moon.” She gazed up at the very orb, looking for all the world as if she was truly contemplating it as real estate.

“Don’t be ridiculous. There is no blood on the moon to feed you,” Enzo said.

“I would bring some then,” Cassandra replied, as if it was that simple. “Will you go with me? To the moon?”

Her beautiful face turned to him, and he couldn’t help be drawn in by the dark slope of her eyes, the roundness of her cheeks; the strength of her chin. His sated Beast rumbled in pleasure as the scent of violets drifted in. Heat trailed up his collar, and it wasn’t entirely the jungle’s fault. “We’ll see,” he said. “Let us fetch the Eye of Ravnos first.”

#

Beckett rested his head on Cassandra’s lap while he read on deck. The book was a medieval recounting of the split in the Ravnos clan, and he’d read it more than once already. But he’d never read it while Cassandra’s cool, deft fingers played with his hair, pet him in so soothing a rhythm that his gaze tinged with contentment and sleep. He’d never read it while she hummed and sang snatches of song so quiet and fast he couldn’t follow; while easy affection rolled between them; while the sky was so dark and the gibbous moon shone so bright; while the waves split across the ship’s prow; while the silence of the floorboards gave them such an illusion of privacy.

“You’re sure you’re not bored, Cassandra?”

“I’m listening.”

“To what? The sea?”

“To the others.”

“Others?”

“In my head. Malkavians. We are never ending, never silent, and never alone. Got to catch up on the gossip.”


	4. Chapter 4

It was all fun and games until Anna killed Dracula’s wife.

The King fleshcrafter himself possessed the last piece of the map, and, by her family’s design, the visit had observed all the old rules of hospitality. In person, Dracula was charming—someone even Cassandra thought she could admire—so when he suggested they play The Werewolf Game, no one had any idea of the horror they’d unleashed.

With two huge, clawed hands, Dracula gripped Beckett’s torso and tore. Her lover screamed as his stomach fell out of revealed ribs, as his legs and intestines parted from the rest of him. Taking no care, showing no notice, Dracula spiked Beckett’s top half into the castle ramparts, the scream silencing to better let the bone crunch echo in her ears. Still showing no remorse, Dracula tossed Beckett’s legs over his shoulder, like they meant nothing, _like he wasn’t a murderer_.

Rage smashed against the iron gates of her will. She bellowed—she wanted to call upon the voices, to crack open the head of her enemies and drain their brains of fluid, to splinter their reality to shards and let Caine devour them from within. But. _No_. She had to control the Beast. She had to help Beckett.

With a shriek, she raced to the castle’s newest blood smear. They were all dead—they all looked like corpses, but Beckett _more_ so, his eyes sunken, and skin watered down. Not caring for the rest of the battle, not caring for anyone else, Cassandra slid into the muck beside him, bit her wrist, and pressed blood into his mouth. “Please, please, please, don’t leave me! We need you!”

His lips moved—oh God, he was awake; the sheer pain he must be experiencing—and he sucked down Cassandra’s blood. He bit her again to further open the wound, and Cassandra was almost dizzy from how fast he was emptying her out.

She pushed his hair out of the way—yes, he looked better. As her body chilled, his skin grew warmer. Two minutes’ worth of seconds later, Cassandra almost startled when his red eyes flew open, pupils thin, barely-there lines, and he shoved her wrist away. With strength from she knew not where, Beckett started to crawl towards his other half.

Which would be fine if a raging Dracula wasn’t between him and his feet.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Beckett, we can’t,” Cassandra said. They had to run, they had to stay safe; they had to leave. She gripped under his armpits and lifted him up, intending to guide him to her ghouls. He needed more blood—they would sort out the consequences later.

That’s when Beckett frenzied.

She had always been careful of his claws, and she knew he was always mindful of them around her. This abrupt demonstration of why sliced right through her chest to the bone.

Pain blitzed through her, but she refused to put him down. She ran as fast as she could to where she’d seen Zelde and Sergio last. Around a corner, by the stream—there they were. Twin faces of surprise.

“We have to help him!” Pressure built behind her eyes, and the stray thought that this dress was ruined invaded.

At once, Sergio ripped Beckett from her and dropped him onto the grassy bank, where Beckett, in his mindlessness, crawled in lame circles. “What has happened, Cassandra?” they asked. “What did Nathan do?”

Shreds of skin and fabric dangled from her, and she pushed them back—keep herself together now. She couldn’t fall apart. “Please, I’m sorry to ask you, but please feed him.” She wanted to cry.

“I’ll do one better,” Zelde said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I will go to the kitchens and get a whole bucket.”

“You stay with him—I will find out what is going on,” Sergio said. “Do not worry. Sit down and watch.”

Cassandra nodded in numb gratefulness as she sank down to the dirt. There was no birdsong around her, but she thought she heard a low male warble from deep inside her head.

They were alone. Beckett exhausted himself and sank down. Her blood had helped—he wasn’t bleeding so profusely anymore, but the grass around him still stained red.

“He says he regrets the stone. He says,” Cassandra said, out of nowhere, without reason. She shivered. “Her daughters will end it all the same.”

Shock. She was in shock. Her eyes buzzed and her ears saw Sergio return. “The fighting has ended, Cassandra. Dracula agreed to truce. Nathan is in torpor and Enzo wants you to donate blood to wake him up.”

“Of course,” some separate part of her replied. “Thank you, darling.”

“You are hungry?”

“Ravenous. But I will deal with that later.”

#

“ _Vorrei tenerti qui vicino a me. Adesso che fra noi non_ _c'è più nulla. Vorrei sentire ancor le tue parole. Quelle parole che non sento più_ ,” a voice sang. Fingers in his hair, plush thigh skin softness under his head, blood on his tongue—a reality so different than the burning bright pain.

“ _Il mondo intorno a noi non esisteva, per la felicità che tu davi. Ch me ne faccio ormai di tutti i giorni miei, se nei miei giorni non ci sei più tu_?” the singer continued. Her sound so warm yet so full of yearning. Deep, throaty Italian, with Sicilian tang.

“ _Che vuole questa musica stasera, che mi riporta un poco del passato, che mi riportra un poco del tuo amore, che mi riporta un poco di te_?”

“Cassandra,” he managed. He tried to raise his hand, and instantly it was snatched and placed gently against a cheek.

She breathed against his palm, cradled his fingers, kissed his knuckles. “ _Un poco di te_?”

Beckett did not consider himself easily frightened, but he could not deny a little fear at the next few minutes. Was he…re-attached? He had drunk from Cassandra again—what effects would ensue?

“You’ll be well again soon, my darling. Legs and all,” Cassandra whispered, singing no longer. “I’ve been spoon-feeding you human blood and there’s more blood right here. Just drink. Don’t worry about anything else. Enzo is navigating our release.”

Murmuring thanks was all he could do.

#

Cassandra asked Beckett to meet her in the library the next night—oh yes, Dracula killed one of the Gangrel Elders in punishment for letting the Neonates get too feisty during games, so everyone was all made up and their journey could continue. Cassandra had barely registered the placating tone of her father’s voice as he saved them. Her family would take care of her—she knew this one truth and she could rely on it absolutely.

When she arrived at the library—which was as luscious as you’d expect Dracula’s library to be—Beckett had already picked out a book and sequestered himself on the softest couch. He looked so at peace, lying there, pillow under his blessed head. She was almost sorry to disturb him.

Too late to retreat—he spotted her. “Ah, Cassandra, good evening.” He sat up, closed his book with a snap, and put in on one of the side tables, under the caring umbrella of an ornate lamp. “What is this abou—is that a sword?”

“I…” Cassandra swallowed. “Yes. Dracula and Dad exchanged gifts to seal their peace, and I suggested we pass along one to you, for all the trouble we have caused. This is Lucita’s Blade. She is your friend, right? The Lasombra? I saw how you eyed the sword, when Dracula showed it to us during our tour of the house.”

Beckett seemed altogether taken aback. He licked his lips and stood to stand in front of her. Cassandra held out the weapon, and he took it carefully. The silver gleamed deadly in his hands.

“You are too generous. I will tell her of you. Of how your family helped retrieve it.”

Cassandra didn’t know what to do with her hands now, so she pressed them against her stomach. She had to make this right—whatever “this” was. She could no longer put off warning him. “I don’t mean to create a debt between us, or between the Bonpensieros and Lucita. This is only an act of friendship. This is what a friend does for another.”

Beckett’s red gaze watched her carefully, and Cassandra felt like the measure of her was being taken. He was wary of her now, wasn’t he? A second layer of blood between them, and she must be careful, so careful to not compromise the independence Beckett so craved. She’d given blood without asking, and it was like she had swallowed a knife. He hadn’t spent the night in her bed. Whatever he saw in her, he nodded. “I understand.”

“I also feel I should warn you. I should have warned you before.” Cassandra took a step back and gazed at the carpet—a lush Persian red one with dizzying designs.

“Cassandra,” Beckett huffed. She heard a click as Beckett set the sword on some reading table. Slowly, he moved into her space and wrapped her in his arms. A hug. An embrace. She wanted to melt into it, but she maintained her rigidity. “What would you like to tell me?”

God, he seemed so solid now, so strong, and yet, she’d seen the inner meat of him only yesterday. She breathed a shuttering breath and smelled old books, cinnamon, and leather. “I say this not as a Malkavian, but as a woman who wishes to be old friends with you. Please take care. If it gets too dangerous, you must run.”

So close like this, his voice vibrated into her skull. “I have been on many dangerous journeys, and traveled with dangerous people before. I know how to be careful. Preventing Netchurch and his group of Nazis from getting the Eye is worth the risk.”

Cassandra shook her head. “Of course, of course, but I speak as someone who knows the players. Someone is going to devour the Eye of Ravnos.”

“I guessed as much,” Beckett said, and he burrowed into the space where her neck joined her shoulder. “Though I will say I more often find people of such violence in the Sabbat and not the Camarilla.”

Cassandra shivered. Was he trying to seduce or merely comfort her? “Beckett, wait.” She wiggled out of his arms, and did she imagine the reluctance in his face? “Beckett, darling,” she tried again. She ghosted a finger over his temple. “You remember yesterday? Dracula hurt you and I gave you some of my blood.”

Beckett’s answer was simple. “Yes. I don’t think I will soon forget the experience.”

Cassandra shied back into herself, covered her face with her hands. “It was terrifying. Beckett, I _saw your dead heart_. I almost frenzied. And if I thought it was horrible, I can’t imagine what it was like to feel it. I didn’t know what else to do—I fed you blood, and—” Come on, Cassie, spit it out. She made herself put her hands down, to look at him straight. “Are you feeling all right? You aren’t hearing voices, are you? What I did—it was okay? If you’re hurt and I don’t know what else to do, can I help you again? Or would you prefer…?” She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. She refused to entertain such a possibility.

“It was extremely disorienting,” Beckett conceded. He arched an eyebrow. “But if you think I would rather face Final Death than drink Malkav’s blood, dispel the notion. I always find myself preferring to survive. The assistance is appreciated.”

Cassandra fiddled with her fingers. “And no voices?”

“Unfortunately for the Cobweb, the only voice in my head is my own,” Beckett smirked. “Now come sit on the sofa with me, if you don’t mind. You’re shaking like a leaf and I want to calm you down.”

A breathy exhale escaped her. One more thing—she’d been assured of his health, he’d been warned, she’d gotten permission to save him again if necessary; she’d given the sword—only one thing more. She hugged herself tight. “Would you like to feed me, to make things equal?”

For the second space in one morning, Beckett paused. He blinked. Opened his mouth. Closed it again. Opened it. “I did hear you correctly, didn’t I? You’re offering to bind yourself to me.”

“Yes. Then you will have much influence over me as I do you. Equality. You can check yourself against me.”

“You truly are strange—for Kindred and Malkavian.”

That was the first and last time Beckett would underestimate her. She unwound herself and stood straight. “I am brave enough to be kind.”

Beckett’s expression twitched, like he was trying to suppress a laugh. “Many would change the saying to ‘foolish enough to be kind.’”

“Do you?” The words hissed out like a challenge, and she meant them as such.

“No,” Beckett said. He stalked close again, crowding her space close enough that she smelled his musk, and her neck prickled from the cold nearness. Her eyes automatically went to his lips, but she forced herself to look into his bright red-gold gaze. “I call it admirable.”

Cassandra knew she shouldn’t babble, but here she was: “I want to be like you. I want to change, to travel, learn, explore. I want to know all there is to know about Caine.”

He was so close, their faces an inch apart. “I accept your offer,” Beckett whispered, and thank God he kissed her then.

Warmth suffused her being, and Beckett swept her off her feet to carry her like a bride to the sofa. He lay her down on the very pillow he’d been using earlier, and Cassandra hoped it wasn’t an unacceptable provocation to hitch her leg to the sofa backing and stretch her other foot to the floor. Completely open. For anything.

Beckett did not make her wait long. He kissed her lips once more and then moved to her jaw, the space behind her ear, her neck, her shoulder, her collarbone. He nuzzled into her armpit, and she couldn’t stop a giggle. She stretched her fingers across his broad back in happiness, but he guided one hand to his head. Heat skittered across her insides as Beckett lifted her dress and kissed his way from thigh to center.

“ _Oh_ ,” she said and pulled on his hair in reflex. His tongue’s talent went straight for her clit and it was like lightening shot to her spine. He did it again, and her whole body shuddered.

He lapped at her, stopping only to lavish attention on her other parts. Pleasure rolled through her belly in slow, sensual waves, building and cresting only to build again to higher heights. She lost track of the noises coming out of her—she could only shut her eyes tight for the ride, throw her neck back, and thank God and Beckett and God again for this gift.

Her orgasm almost surprised her at its ripping suddenness, like a hot soul jolted. She only had a moment to breathe before Beckett thrust into her with a grunt and oh—she was so glad to be full now, so full, full of him in her arms and between her legs.

Like she was a person of interest, worthy of careful study, like he needed time to catalogue every reaction, Beckett agonized her in slow pace, placing her mind back in that floating bath of watery, slick arousal heat. He buried his face in her neck, and his hot breath was an erratic staccato against her already sensitive flesh. His piercing thrust disjointed her mental clock—they could have been in the library for hours, or it could have been minutes.

The angle changed, and she almost shouted as he hit some hidden well of pleasure. Her fingers dug into his back, and his smirk pressed against her neck. He licked a stripe and oh God, she was going to come again. So hot, so soon—

“Ready?” Beckett whispered and she almost replied with “for what?” until Beckett’s wrist against her teeth made his meaning abundantly clear.

Without any hesitation, unknowing what future she was hurtling them towards, Cassandra bit down. The tender, white flesh of his gushed the redness of life into her mouth, and she swallowed it down like the starved. Beckett’s blood tasted juicy, rich, and earthy, like a date freshly plucked from the tree. She licked the wound to healing, and good thing too, because as his blood hit her, she ignited.

Like flame, like dying, like being burnt at the stake and he was the only salvation, the embrace and course of change. Orgasm beyond orgasm, love beyond love. What would have it been like, to be granted immortality by him, to be his pagan goddess of the wild?

When Cassandra came to herself, her clothes were neat and she sat in Beckett’s lap, with one hand on her back and the other on her knees and her head tucked under his chin. He nuzzled her shoulder, took deep breaths of her scent; murmured something too low for her to catch. It was almost…doting.

“I’m awake,” she said, her voice faint in even her own ears. “How are you?”

The deep rumble of his chuckle was enough of an answer. “Extraordinary, considering.”

“Allow me to stay here with you until we’re called away?” she asked. Her arms felt boneless, but she managed to tug on his shirt all the same. “Please?”

“Of course,” Beckett said. “Let me just get my book.”


	5. Chapter 5

Netchurch had an arm wrapped around his neck and a palm pressing hard against his head.

“I suggest you all stay very still.” Netchurch’s smooth voice filled the desert temple.

Noticing her clan-mate in danger, the remaining Gangrel Elder froze immediately, and Don Enzo’s bronzed skin flashed back to flesh. Anna struck and dusted Netchurch’s last Neonate ally before whirling around to assess the situation. Gaunt and blood splattered, Archie fell to a knee, and Nathan snarled in frustration.

“No!” Cassandra shrieked. “Let him go!”

Beckett tried to calm his breathing. There was always a way out of the situation. He just had to remain logical. Some way would present itself. He forced time to slow. To be observant. The kicked-up dust of the temple floated like nothing.

“Netchurch,” Enzo said, in what Beckett recognized as his “fatherly” voice, one old and wise that made the naïve trust the Ventrue. “We can come to an agreement. Many Elders are fond of Beckett. Lucien LaCroix, our Prince Divia, Aristotle de Laurent, the Malkavian Anatole, the Lasombra Lucita—you remember them, don’t you? They will pay a blood price for their Memory-Seeker’s life. All can be forgiven. Just give us the Eye and the archeologist.”

“The Eye is non-negotiable. I doubt even LaCroix’s coffers could meet my price.”

“Kill him! What do I care about an arrogant archeologist!” Nathan screamed. Beckett heard the voices beyond his voice, the hysterical bloodlust undercurrent. “Fuck it, I’ll eat him myself.”

“Absolutely not,” came Cassandra’s voice. Beckett’s eyes darted in frantic motion, trying to find her. He’d been distracted. Why had his gaze ever left hers? Netchurch bodily swung them around, towards the altar. Where was she— _no_.

Cassandra Bonpensiero had unlocked the box.

Some Malkavian insight—oh God “ _the gossip_ ”—had gifted her the code to open the box. And so she held the Eye.

Before he could scream his defiance, could extend claws and stab them into Netchurch’s arm, Cassandra tilted her head back and brought her cupped hands to her mouth. There was an audible gulp.

Netchurch threw him down, and sand scratched his face. “What have you done, you stupid woman—”

Beckett scrambled up and ran towards her. Cassandra straightened and raised her arms before her face like she was warding something away. Eyes closed, she looked completely blank, like a slate wiped clean—all that glimmering expression gone. The air around her shimmered, and a heat he felt in his cold bones came off her. She had eaten the remnant of a methuselah of Ravnos, and her first words were, “You should see the sun.”

The skin upon her forehead split open like a ripped seam, and three eyes opened to complete whiteness, iris gone. Her mouth hummed, and a great disc of light grew out of darkness behind her. Brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter—the sun.

“Cassandra!” Beckett shouted, as the Beast inside him howled in fright. It wanted to run, to flee, to escape, but he forced another foot forward. He hadn’t seen the sun in two hundred years, and now it screamed and burned and blistered his skin. He could not truly register Netchurch’s high-pitched shriek, for he had to walk to the great halo of fire framing his love.

Pain laced through him, stabbed and skittered and wounded. The humming drummed, hammered into the fine bones of his ears, made his brain rattle. But he had to reach her—blood may burst and leak down his neck, but he must prevail.

“Stop screaming, Beckett!” Hands shook him, roughly dragged him; yanked him out. He hit the sand again, and Anna’s calloused hands slapped him hard.

Abruptly, the pain ceased like it never was. “What—”

“An illusion,” Anna said, by way of explanation. “You’re fine, see? Now I gotta go cut off Netchurch’s head real quick while he’s down.”

Beckett blinked, and, to his shame, a whimper escaped. His Beast made his body curl up, protect his stomach. He was going into shock. His ears rang with an unidentifiable sound. When he closed his eyes, he saw white.

Five minutes later he felt a cool hand on his shoulder. “Beckett,” the soft, low voice said. “Everything’s all right.”

The hand smoothed his hair. “You have sand in your hair, darling.”

“Cassandra.” The ringing faded, and when he opened his eyes, it was true night. It had always been night. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Saved you and my family,” Cassandra said, and Beckett could hear the inarguable stubbornness of her words. She would cut off her own arm if it meant saving him, and do it without regret. The difference was, Kindred could re-grow arms.

Beckett sat up. Cassandra kneeled before him. Her family formed a protective circle, as if daring anything more to test their might. He resisted the urge to look at Nathan. A remarkable stand of loyalty and marking as one of their own from a member who had just offered to kill him.

She looked normal—her skin pale, her hair blonde, the correct number of eyes on her face. Her expression desperate and hopeful and pleading with him.

God, what else could he do?

He crawled into her embrace. She hugged him tight, and he took great heaving breaths of her, smelling violets and blood and earth.

Enzo coughed. “If you two are done. We must discuss the consequences of my daughter’s actions.”

“Not here,” Cassandra whispered. “Let’s return to the ship.”

He didn’t want to stop touching her, so he didn’t. In one of the greatest shows of public affection he’d ever made, he held her hand. In complete silence, they flitted from shadow to shadow, Jeep to docks to their haven ship. Sergio and Zelde took one look at their mistress and Beckett and tucked themselves on either side. Cassandra murmured to them soft reassurances that did nothing to stop their worried expressions.

Enzo led them all to the formal dining room. They sat down. A goblet of ever-refilling blood was passed around. Italian Catholics: nothing was done on an empty stomach.

“Now that we are fed, Beckett will explain what my daughter has done,” Enzo said. Naturally a short man, Enzo took full advantage of the fact that Beckett was sitting and he was standing to look down his nose. “I ask for silence while he speaks.”

“It’s very simple.” Beckett couldn’t resist putting the jab in. “Cassandra has performed diablerie on a methuselah. Though it was only his eye, the act works like any other case of diablerie. Her generation has lowered, and she has inherited the power of the Ravnos. The illusion ability in specific.”

“We saw Netchurch cower. What did you show him, Aunt?” Anna asked.

Cassandra didn’t meet anyone’s gaze. “The sun.”

A hiss went around the table. Cassandra’s jaw tightened. “It’s what he deserved,” she insisted. “He was going to kill Beckett.”

“If you plan to cannibalize everyone who wants me dead, it will take a very long time and may not be worth the effort,” Beckett huffed. “So, don’t.”

Nathan glared at them. “What are we going to tell the Prince?”

“We are not technically on Camarilla lands,” Archie mused. Face washed of weariness and blood, Cassandra’s brother was the quietest Tremere Beckett had ever met, which meant he was also the most disquieting.

“We could _not_ tell the Prince,” Anna suggested. “It would do more harm than good, anyway.”

Enzo stiffened. “I didn’t hear that.”

Ah, Enzo’s loyalty. What did LaCroix do to inspire such depth? What horror would be unleashed if no one held the Bonpensiero patriarch’s leash?

“She could leave. Don Enzo will tell the Prince everything when she’s not there,” Sergio said.

Everyone’s attention zeroed in on the ghoul, who dared to speak during a meeting of vampires. Cassandra really did treat her ghouls differently. Sergio spoke with clear confidence that Beckett hadn’t expected. “We were planning on it, anyway. Weren’t we, Cassandra?”

She nodded in confirmation. “I’m getting too old for Hollywood, Daddy. People are starting to notice. I have to disappear.”

Nathan slammed a fist on the table. “That’s bullshit. I had to go through a trial and everything and Aunt Cassandra just gets to travel around with her cadre of weirdos?”

Cassandra finally raised her head, and her gaze glittered with dark danger. “Watch your tongue, nephew.” She turned to Enzo. “Sergio, Zelde, and I have talked it over before. Very carefully. We think it would be best if I Embraced Zelde. She can stay in Los Angeles and look after my affairs while I’m gone. Sergio can come and look after me.”

Father and daughter entered a staring contest. Some family subtextual undercurrent flowed between them, and Beckett shivered. He had wondered how strange and diverse a coterie had gained such power in Los Angeles, but now he certainly did not want to know.

“All right,” Enzo sighed. “Fine.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Anna yawned. “I’m going to hit the hay. It’s near dawn, everybody.”

“Honestly, this night was a clusterfuck,” Nathan complained. Both he and Anna rose to return to their cabins, the fading sound of Nathan’s complaints trailing them. “Fuckery and confusion.”

“We will talk details in the morning,” Enzo commanded. “Thank you for your patience with us, Elder.”

Beckett had almost forgotten the Gangrel was there. She said nothing as she rose, only glanced at Beckett in disapproval. Well, like she could throw stones. She had burned to ash the last three cities she’d settled in, according to several reliable sources. Beckett sneered.

She made no comment, and neither did Enzo. Archie slipped away. It was only Cassandra, he, and her ghouls in the room. “I shall wash before bed, Sergio,” Cassandra announced.

“A good idea,” Sergio said. “You’re covered in sand. We went to all that trouble to get these adventuress clothes and they will need to go to the dry cleaner’s already.”

Cassandra didn’t look at Beckett as she rose and walked out of the room, her ghouls following after her. “Tell us what happened, Cassie,” he heard Zelde saying.

“Cassie,” huh? He’d never heard anyone else shorten Cassandra’s long, elegant name. Maybe only Zelde was allowed.

Beckett felt himself at a crossroads. With her lack of acknowledgement, Cassandra was clearly giving him a choice. He could continue on with her and her family, or he could sever that connection, before it became too deep. It was perhaps too deep already. She had changed and that changed their relationship. Her diablerie would put a target on her back in Camarilla circles. By the same token, it opened interesting possibilities for the Sabbat and Anarch groups. Several of his sources would be quick to assure him that the methuselah lingered in her blood, that she would carry his soul forever, which was strange to think about. The blood bond rumbled in his veins—his Beast was in full support of returning to Cassandra’s embrace—but the rational human mind had priorities, too.

He sighed and cradled his head in his hands. His quest was technically complete. The Eye was beyond the hands of Netchurch and his band of fascist zealots now. His desk had a letter on it from Smiling Jack, asking about investigating some mythical Anarch utopia together. He had replied that he needed to find the Ravnos methuselah’s Eye first, but it had sounded fascinating.

Cassandra would like Smiling Jack. The roughness of his manners and the snarls of his hair belied a twinkling, happy personality with intelligence and savvy unique in this age. Like Beckett, Jack too had a fondness of Neonates and felt for them and their plight. He would like Cassandra—who could not like the glittering, kind Cassandra?

He could tread back to shallower waters. He could leave Cassandra’s bed for the rest of the voyage, share only polite discourse with her in the presence of others, report back to the Prince of LA with minimal fanfare, and bid all goodbye before continuing on. The Bonpensieros would join his ever-expanding list of contacts, to be called upon when he happened to need something they had. He would hear rumors and news of Los Angeles—from Anatole if no one else—but Cassandra would not send him even a postcard without his express permission.

This could be the end.


	6. Chapter 6

But he did not want that.

His nails dug into his skin in frustration.

He stood. He walked. He knocked on her door.

Sergio answered, and the door groaned open on rusty hinges. “Cassandra is in the shower,” they said, their face betraying no surprise at Beckett’s presence. “You will come in?”

“Please,” was all Becket said.

Cassandra’s cabin was larger than his, which he supposed made sense when she had to accommodate two mothering ghouls. Their beds lined the far wall in a row, and three large trunks sat against each metal frame. Two desks also took up space—one appeared to be cluttered with drafting paper for clothes, while the other held a gun of some sort. “Is that a grenade?” Beckett said in his most apathetic voice. After the events of the night, he doubted he could be surprised by anything.

Zelde spoke. “Yes. You remember the grenade launcher Nathan used on Netchurch’s forces? I made it, so you Kindred can use the little bombs without immediately giving in to the Beast. It’s been quite a problem, but I think this prototype shows promise.” She touched the gun with a loving finger, before fixing him with a piercing glare. “More importantly, are you one of us now?”

At first glance, Zelde and Cassandra could be sisters. They were both tall and blonde, though Cassandra was dainty, with willowy curves, and Zelde had a stockier, solid shape. On second glance, though, Zelde had a sensible, no-nonsense air about her that Cassandra lacked. She exuded practicality and competence. In Rio, he’d seen that devastating sort of competence at work when she cracked German military codes within minutes.

“He is,” Sergio said. Beckett felt their fingers at his shoulder, and he hid his surprise as Sergio helped him take off his jacket and took his bag. “Cassandra is not wrong about people.”

“She is _frequently_ wrong about people,” Zelde pointed out. “LaCroix played her like a fiddle when he first came to town. She thinks Bertram is her best friend, when he will not give her the time of day unless a dollar bill is present.”

“Not about their capacity for goodness. She’s just wrong about their kindness extending always to her,” Sergio said, shaking their head and hanging Beckett’s jacket and bag up on a hook on the wall. “Beckett is good to her. I know.”

“That or you like the look of him,” Zelde crossed her arms and stuck out her tongue.

“May I speak?” Beckett interrupted the banter.

Sergio and Zelde exchanged a glance. “Certainly,” she said.

“I intend to offer myself as a traveling companion to Cassandra. After we finish our business in LA, I would like to take her to the Ivory Coast, where a contact is waiting to embark on a new investigation. From what I know of your mistress, she will enjoy the adventure.”

Zelde snorted. “He said ‘mistress.’ As if our Cassie would treat us like that.”

“I know she worries for you, and how her presence distorts you,” Beckett said. “Especially you, Sergio.”

Sergio said nothing. They were a curious person, the genderqueer type that Beckett had not seen since his last time in the Pacific islands. A hooked nose, slicked hair, and glasses made them at once imperious and self-effacing.

“If you betray her, I will kill you,” they said, like it was the simplest, most obvious thing in the world. “Now, she will want you in the shower. You may rest with us this day.”

“I thank you for your trust and generosity,” Beckett said, unable to stop his smirk.

“Make sure you keep it. I can be patient, and I was not the Prince of the Sicilian Mafia for nothing,” Sergio remarked.

Beckett had nothing to say to that, so he only nodded and walked to the bathroom.

#

Cassandra heard the bathroom door open, but she didn’t move. The hot water rained on her from above, falling against her skin with a murmur almost loud enough to drown the voices out.

“Cassandra?” Beckett’s voice called. “Sergio instructed me to join you, and who am I to argue with their wisdom.”

Cassandra’s heart fluttered in her chest, and a pressure grew behind her eyes—a sign that, if she was human, she’d be crying. As a Kindred, she could easily swallow the salt down. “Beckett?”

He had come—he was coming. She had given him a choice, and he had chosen her. Ears caught the shift of clothing as he stripped, and the shower door bemoaned its opening. Breath caught in her throat as he stepped in, naked and glorious and tantalizing.

Like a magnet finding its mate, she stepped into his arms. Wet, bedraggled, exhausted, her body slumped against him, let his strong arms hold her up. He murmured into her wet hair. “How are you feeling?”

“I can feel the turning of the sun in my bones,” Cassandra said. “We don’t have much time.”

“Then we won’t waste it,” Beckett said. With that, he captured her mouth in his own.

Heat flushed to her center. Beckett lifted and spun them so the delicious frisson of the barely warm tiles and blood-warm skin pressed against her back. Fully under the shower spray, he would be soaked. Evidently, he desired such, for he kneeled and nudged her legs apart.

Cassandra gasped as Beckett buried his face in the thatch of blonde hair at her legs’ joining. She had barely begun to be wet before, but his tongue on her labia send a surge of hot liquid arousal. The inside of her flowered from his attentions, as he kept licking and nuzzling. She started when his tongue entered her, quick, tiny thrusts, and a moan escaped.

“I regret my claws the most in times like this,” Beckett said, the rumble of his voice placed just so _did_ things to her. “My apologies.”

Cassandra panted. “Don’t. Ever.”

She could feel his smile as he kissed the inside of her thighs. Her pussy dripped now, and she whimpered as Beckett went back to work, penetrating with his curling tongue. Desire and ache shot through her breasts, and she squeezed them, making nipples harden to points. If he didn’t touch her clit soon, she would lose more of her mind.

As if he’d heard her, the broad, flat blade of his tongue swiped back her hood to soothe the swollen pearl. Her insides clenched as her knees wobbled, and Beckett gripped her at once, holding her up. Oh, he had such power—another night this would be a glowing, hours-long process. For now, she squeezed her breasts again in time with his tongue’s stroke and let out the crying little whimper that had been bottling up her throat. Sweat dewed her brow as the interior fire grew and grew and grew. And _still_ Beckett persisted, inexorable and single-minded.

Closing her eyes did nothing but make the stars of her orgasm brighter. A shiver crawled through her body, and Beckett rode her through a wave of silver lights only to follow it with another, brighter, hotter, more demanding pleasure. Cassandra nearly collapsed with the weight of it, the heavy pure ringing.

Beckett—darling, sweet Beckett—rose and gathered her to him. She felt like her spirit floated a little above her body, distant and faded and good. He cradled her and bruised her lips with a scorching kiss. Why was the water not boiling from their love? There was no mistaking the hot, demanding length against her thigh.

He kissed her in an open-mouthed and thorough way, thick with want. Tiredness clung like cobwebs to her limbs. There was no time.

The water shut off, and Beckett half-carried, half-guided Cassandra out of the shower. She watched as he grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped her in it, swaddled her, and merely shook himself. Hurry.

The cherry of his gaze filled her whole world as he lay her on the bed. Tucking himself beside her, he snuggled close. She had just enough energy to touch his cheek, before the torpor set in. “Thank you.”

#

When Beckett woke, he knew he had moved during the day. His head’s pillow was the soft, warm rise and fall of flesh, and someone— _Cassandra_ —was detangling his hair in idle, domestic strokes. Atop a lover’s breast was the ideal way to wake up, and he spooned closer to the curves of her, threw an arm over to fondle the smooth bone of her opposite hip. “Good evening.”

“Good evening,” Cassandra giggled. “How are you?”

“Extremely well,” Beckett said, nuzzling and shifting his head up to capture her sweet lips in a kiss. “You spoil me.”

Even his Beast seemed to yawn in contentment. Maybe the future was bright after all.


	7. Chapter 7

As the moon’s face burned across the sky, Cassandra’s blood burned through him. They were careful, on the voyage, to not exchange blood again. The Bonpensiero’s ship reversed its course, and they traveled towards Morocco. Cassandra explained to him that she knew one Jeanette la Charmante as best friends, and Cassandra could stay with her in great ease and comfort until Beckett could return. “It will be darling to see her and Frank again, you know,” she explained. “They run a little night club in Casablanca.”

She drew up letters while sitting on her bed, and the ghouls tinkered on the projects to while away the quiet evenings. Beckett found himself moving into this domestic scene. He’d bring a book, lay beside his lover, and let little sparks of pleasure warm his chest when Cassandra absently pet his head. Gangrels were not dogs, nor wolves, but they did share strange affinities. He’d meet his Final Death before he played fetch, but he would not deny that he liked his hair played with, or his thoughts soothed by a gentle hand on the skull.

Feelings he hadn’t felt in an age were bubbling up, even as the blood waned. A part of him was frightened at their intensity—and directed towards a Malkavian cannibal no less. Another, small yet loud, part was frightened they would vanish. That he would return to being the sole occupant of his body and it would be cold and dull. Research would not have the thrill he remembered, or the mysteries of the world would pale in comparison to the moonlight of her smile. What if he left her in Casablanca and he forgot what it was like to be alive?

Only a handful of nights were left before they would be parted. However temporary the separation, he dreaded it. He wanted to be anchored to her, blood bond or no blood bond, and in a rarer way than friendship. “A romance of feeling,” Oscar Wilde had called it. Though who was Basil Hallward and who was Dorian Gray in this scenario was a toss-up. He had bitten first, after all.

#

They lay alone and naked together in his bed after a thorough enjoyment of bodies. Beckett’s head was across her breast again, and as she panted, she could almost imagine a racing heart beneath her ribs. Alive, alive, alive. Pity they weren’t alive.

Beckett found a hand and kissed her palm. “Cassandra, have you ever been to confession?”

She laughed. “Every Easter since I was fifteen.”

“Then forgive me if I’m wrong, but,” Beckett said, “is it true that, in Catholic tradition, in exigency anyone can hear another person’s confession?”

“Why, yes,” Cassandra laughed again, remembering the sight of herself in that awful, frilly First Communion gown. “If a person is dying, even a woman can cleanse their soul. Why do you ask?”

He kissed her knuckles. “I want you to hear mine.”

What? She’d been operating under the assumption that Beckett had no religion, or, if pressed, was perhaps Anglican, like his country of origin. Why would he be interested in a Catholic rite, and why now? “Darling, you aren’t dying for fifty years at least.”

He chuckled and shifted to hover over her, placing arms at her sides and spreading his fingers wide. His vermilion eyes loomed over her like prophecy, and her breath caught as he said, “We’re already dead.”

Cassandra eyed him in a critical way: was he trying to trick her? “I’m glad you’ve come around to my way of thinking, but this is not how I expected that to happen.”

He leaned down to kiss her collarbone. “Only hear me, Cassandra.”

She huffed a little breath. “All right. What would you like to confess, my child?”

Beckett’s head popped up for the seeming express purpose of showing his incredulity. Hah. Not Catholic then. “Child?”

Cassandra shrugged. “That’s what all priests call members of the Church. We are all Children of God, and in confession, the priest is channeling God to admonish us.”

“All right.” He looked skeptical, but his face smoothed to seriousness again. “You know I don’t consider myself a sentimental man. Pride myself on it, in fact.” Beckett’s expression softened into something for which she had no name. She could only watch and ghost her hands over him as he leaned down and licked the salt of her sweat off her neck. “Cassandra, I am utterly besotted.”

Bright affection pierced through her. “With me?”

Beckett mouthed at her ear and whispered his answer. “Yes.”

Cassandra tilted her face to meet his lips. She kissed him languidly, softly—almost lazy in its tenderness, as her heart swelled in joy. She only stopped when she realized his arms shook, from what effort she knew not. “Beckett?”

His eyes were shut tight. “My Beast…I want to cover you, mount you, have my scent all over you.” He dipped to kiss her neck again, to lick a long backward stripe from her collar bone to breast. Her breathing shuddered as he sucked her nipples to fullness, as he scraped his teeth against her belly, careful not to break skin. “I want everyone to smell you and know you’re mine.

“It doesn’t make _sense_ ,” he growled into her hipbone. “I am a logical man, and some animal part wants to run with you, to soar, to fear no man or beast.”

His words fanned the flames of arousal. This was quite the confession indeed, and she was sure no one had heard the like. Not from Beckett. She would have to treat this gift with care and earnestness.

“Then do it,” Cassandra said. Beckett’s eyes about popped out of his skull when he looked at her, his pupils wide in wonder. She chucked his chin, and a sad smile crept on her face. “Only don’t leave me.”

“I have to report back to LaCroix and your Prince,” he said. “You know that.”

Cassandra shook her head. “Yes, but after. It would be easy. Leave the mad Malk at Casablanca and go on the next adventure.” She framed his stunned face with her fingers and guided them to a chaste kiss. “That is what I fear, Beckett.”

Beckett swallowed, and Cassandra watched his Adam’s apple bob. He looked almost…frightened. But that was impossible. Beckett was never frightened. Not of her, certainly. She’d swallowed down the closest thing she could find to an antediluvian and he hadn’t so much as blinked. “Beckett,” she said, swiping a thumb across his cheekbone. “Do it. Mount me, mark me, distill your scent to perfume. So long as it means you will return.”

A great shudder went through his body, and he buried his face in her neck again. Cassandra swore she saw the flicker of fur in the ripple—a thick, gray shimmer over him, like he was about to transform.

“Go on,” she said. A curiosity tickled over her, what Beckett would be like at his wildest, if he could make the bruises last through the morning.

A growl ripped out Beckett’s throat, and whiplash slapped Cassandra as she was flipped onto her stomach. He yanked her hips upward and clamped onto them like a vise. She was still wet from their last tryst, but it wasn’t enough to dull the tearing feeling as Beckett penetrated his cock into her to the hilt. She couldn’t stop herself from crying out, as he pulled out and slammed in again. The pain made her see stars, and she could only submit to more, putting her ass in the air and letting her hands spasm and grip the sheets.

Scorching arousal sliced through her with every rut and slap of his flesh on her skin. Her breasts bounced in a pleasurable, pornographic pain. Her pussy was slick. He smeared his heavy body against her, rubbed and mingled and clawed. Enough cinnamon to fill her mouth, to make her choke. The heat built and built with the pounding so that she almost cried for the maddening dizzy of it. “Beckett,” she said, and her voice sounded alien in her own ears for how strangled it was.

He grabbed her hair to expose her neck, and orgasm pulsed through her body. And _still_ he pounded on, sloppier now, so the wave of pleasure pulsed again, never ending white—

_They are together, but it so lonely to walk the earth._

—and the vision left her. She screamed as sweat obscured her vision, as Beckett’s seed filled her to the brim with boiling, as her insides writhed with pleasure of reception, as she swore her dead heart thudded in her ears.

Beckett yanked and smacked her body against his, sitting up and holding her on his lap, still penetrated, still shaking. Palms and fingers hot enough to burn. Her head fell back, and he teethed at her shoulder, mouthed her ear, nipped at her neck. If this was what possession was like, Cassandra never wanted to be released. How could this ever be a bad idea?


End file.
